


Broken

by WilhelmAres



Category: Making Fiends
Genre: Character Death, Charlotte Dies, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23725393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WilhelmAres/pseuds/WilhelmAres
Summary: Sanity is doing the same thing over and over again knowing something will eventually break.It's just that it was Charlotte's skull this time.
Relationships: Charlotte & Vendetta
Kudos: 12





	Broken

_I'm insane. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Is attacking the same thing if you do it a different way each time? Is it insane to dig a hole through a wall as though each and every shovel isn't the same action? God that's a lot of red. I thought she'd look purple, but its blue with flakes of red._

_Breathe, Vendetta. You've done it._

And she did it. Charlotte laid on the ground, head split open by the hard concrete. Grudge was ordered to attack her directly, on the swing set. Such a simple solution seemed stupid to overlook, but Vendetta did for months. He pushed her higher and higher, until she launched right off and landed head first on the sidewalk. She sat there crying and laughing through the pain, hoping the school nurse would come.

Vendetta made sure he wouldn't. He knew better regardless. Charlotte passed away on the playground, and was left there as a warning. Vendetta forced Mr. Milk to dismiss class early, as a celebration. 

_It's a holiday, right? Let's get some onions, to commemorate her death!_

So she did. She got some onion ice cream, went home, designed a new statue for Grudge, set up Battleship so Charlotte would leave her alone tomorrow, and got ready for bed. As she neared her sleep, she got up and put up the game, as Charlotte wouldn't be around to play it.

_Stupid habits stupid blue girl locked me into._

She dreamed of blood replacing the ocean, tears replacing grape juice, all blue in the world a crimson red, all smiles frowns on forcibly rotated heads, birds screaming and crying instead of singing as though the entire world tried to bloodily rid itself of all things Charlotte. Everything except the screaming, the blood, the tears themselves. Vendetta woke up from a dream she would have welcomed the night before, but now unsettled her. It was black outside, the moon not willing to see the corpse of refined and humanized sunshine. 

She fell quickly asleep, but a dream of walking her house followed. She got no rest from the dark house, fiends unfamiliar creeping under the floorboards. It grew only darker until she sat in total nothing, waiting for a sunrise that could never come. She awoke to sunshine, and shook off the nightmares.

After breakfast, Vendetta stopped by to see Charlotte's corpse, the red turned brown and the blue dulled. She thought flies would start eating her, but tiny fiends kept her body preserved so far. It's been less than 24 hours, she reasoned. The rest of the Saturday was uneventful, with construction beginning on Grudge's statue and a dreamless sleep on the couch. Vendetta's parents lost their daily food because they referred to Charlotte as Vendetta's friend on Sunday, Charlene didn't come to work, and didn't leave her house. Vendetta baked a fiend to take over like she did every Sunday _it's easier to nip her in the bud on Sundays before she tries to 'befriend' the church and cause a ruckus_

_Wait. No._ and Charlene told her to leave. Vendetta didn't like the house, with the wilting flowers and the sky the same as all of Clamburg. _What's wrong with the sky? I set it so it would look like this, why does it look wrong here?_

On Monday, Vendetta let class go on like normal for a Monday: come back in from recess, do some reading, do some science. During science, as always, Vendetta got annoyed at the incessant humming in the air and snapped at Charlotte to be quiet. She noticed the rest of the class looking at her funny, but she focused on designing a fiend to destroy Charlotte. It wasn't until 3 PM that she remembered what happened. She released her planned fiend on her classmates for hearing her hum.

Charlene came to bury her granddaughter, and Vendetta chose to let her do so. Maybe her body being buried will help stop the phantom routines. 

"You know, she considered you a friend. She always had the biggest smile when talking about playing with you."

"And I always tried to destroy her. Her play was annoying agony. Goodbye, stupid old lady."

On Tuesday, she felt nothing. She thought she should feel good, feel pride. Through her despair she smiled. Through the silence at school she hummed. She didn't feel enough to sic the fiends on the school again. She dragged on through the gray nothing until bed, where she tossed and turned until finally sleeping in the early morning.

In her dream, Charlotte broke into her house to talk over breakfast, like she did every Wednesday. She dodged every attempt on her life in pure ignorance. They went to school, she tried to befriend Vendetta, she survived everything thrown at her, and Vendetta woke with a smile. She doesn't understand the smile, but it fades as quickly as the memory of a dream.

Vendetta goes entirely nonverbal Wednesday. Her patterns have been ruined and she can't cope. She laid under the playground like an injured animal until recess was over. She tried her hardest to restore her routine, but Maggie was a horrible Charlotte. She stormed home after school and ordered Grudge to walk around town til dusk. She needed to be alone. He came home to her asleep in one of Charlotte's dresses she left when the houses collided a month back. He carried her to her bed and ran an errand she'd never think to ask.

Meanwhile, Vendetta knew she was in a dream. She dislikes knowing when she's in a dream because she has no control over dreams. She sat on the swing set under the blood red sky, and rocked. A whisper of a ghost came from the corpse on the seat next to her. "Why are you not happy" Charlotte asked. "You've always wanted me dead." Vendetta gave her that. "You feel nothing but a mild panic about feeling nothing. You should feel bad about a person dying, but you have to fake it. You should feel good about finally beating me, but you put on a facsimile of a smile and try to fill my place."

Vendetta tuned the fake out, unable to will her away and unable to dispute it, but knowing it's not Charlotte. It sounds like her, but it doesn't sound like her. The pitch is right but the speech is wrong. 

She remembered the dream in the morning, and cracked. She laughed, she kept the dress on, and she went to school. The sky was beautiful today. The class was particularly friendly when she played with them. _This is wrong, stop. Charlotte isn't happiness. Faking isn't truth._ They were particularly scared when the fantasy if happiness burst out of her in a "teehee" before failing and sending fiends after them. 

Vendetta was on the verge, just a verge, not knowing what lay on the other side of a breakdown. _Have I already snapped? I'm insane, I'm broken, I have everything and want nothing._ She walked home to Grudge's present: Charlotte's corpse propped up against her fiend pantry. She smiled, teeheed, laughed, and worked.

Charlotte and Vendetta walked to school on Friday, as thought the last week never occurred. Nothing will ever be right in Clamburg, but it's no longer broken. Charlene thanked Vendetta after school.


End file.
